After the recent demise of my old Epson DX-5000 I took unto myself a new XP-205. It has printed and copied well enough, but until today I have never tried to scan to disc. Neither Gimp nor Simplescan recognise its presence.
I am therefore thinking "Driver".
So...before dashing of to "Mr Epson's emporium of mixed drivers for all occasions" (and fouling things up) I felt I should check what drivers were already aboard and just needed activating.
Please can some kind soul remind me of the location of the file I need. I remember either checking or unchecking a line in a file a few years ago when I first got the old DX-5000, but my memory is not up to it.
Thanks In advance.

SANE is probably what you're thinking of, but your device isn't mentioned anywhere in their supported devices, either in the stable or development branches. I checked for you, kind soul that I am.

Further, a look at Epson's support site reveals that they offer both printing and scanning drivers for Linux. Sorry I can't give a direct link, but it's one of those things where the relevant page only appears after you enter the search terms, all scripted stuff rather than static links.

Rhakios wrote:SANE is probably what you're thinking of, but your device isn't mentioned anywhere in their supported devices, either in the stable or development branches. I checked for you, kind soul that I am.

Further, a look at Epson's support site reveals that they offer both printing and scanning drivers for Linux. Sorry I can't give a direct link, but it's one of those things where the relevant page only appears after you enter the search terms, all scripted stuff rather than static links.

Thank you once again kind soul.
Yes, now you mention it I feel sure you are right about SANE. I remember thinking about being driven insane by a driver in SANE.
I have been and had a ferret about amongst Mr Epson's offerings and trying to make sense of it all is a bit like trying to juggle with a ton of loose soot.
He seems to have drivers for everything and in fact at one point I was of the impression that he had one driver that covered several hundred of his machines.
I left his site in a very mixed up state of mind. I thought I had found the scanner drive for my machine, but when I pushed the "download" button it was just as responsive as politicians conscience. Nothing happened
So I am no nearer a solution.

Well kind sir, using your link I too have downloaded scan_2.29.1-5~usb0.1.ltdl7_i386.deb.

However, the beastly little example of the XP-205 family that I have here must have known that you were going to spoil its idleness and has started being obstinate on another front.
It started flashing its ink warning light.
Now the "thing" was bought new only a couple of weeks ago and the large folded piece of paper that is passed off as a "manual" said that the cartridges contained enough ink for installation purposes only and would need renewing in a short time.
So, being an old boy scout, and believing in "Be Prepared", I had a set of cartridges to hand.
It indicated that it wanted the blue one changing. So that was changed.
It followed that by further flashing and then indicated it wanted the black one changing. That was changed.
It continued flashing, but the ink cartridge carriage would not move to indicate which cartridge was empty.
So I ran a Print Test Page.
Yep, everything printed as per, but the ink light still kept flashing. Even turning the printer off and then on again made no difference.
During all the ronking back and forth (that seems to be an essential part of cartridge replacement in all printers) there were quaint crunchy bumping noises emanating from under the cartridge carriage, like it was a railway carriage running over the points and coming off the rails.
I feel it going to go back to the shop.
However thanks for your help, kind sir. I shall prepare myself for a battle with the retail trade.

Just one other thing, assuming you end up with the same printer in operational mode, don't forget that you also need the iscan data package mentioned above. They don't make it very clear in the instructions, I needed to read them twice before I could see what they were going on about.

guy...I have noted your suggestion and have had a look on their site. Apparently they seem to want the serial number, so I have found that but before I could get any further Mrs Catgate came wanting some help,so I had to shelve that until later in the day/night.

Rhakios...I have the downloaded deb package and saved it for just that possibility, but I am not impressed with the XP-205. It seems like something made down to a price rather than up to a quality. So depending upon the outcome of my discourse with the retail trade I may come home with something different. Just what I do not know. I think I was spoiled with the previous DX-5000.

Well all went well with my discussions with the retail trade and, after handing over more of my pension to them, I came home with an Epson WF-2530.
It is a workmanlike looking device and is supposed to print/copy/scan/fax and do the ironing, do the vacuuming, and brew pots of tea whilst whistling excerpts from Swan Lake.
Sadly it only prints and copies (quite nicely) at present, and so it looks as though I need to install an Epson scanner driver.
To this end I have downloaded two which to my simple mind look as though they both might be clients for the job. However my problem is "which is the right one".
They are ...

You should read the FAQ (tiny link at the bottom of the download page), which tells you that the iscan_2.29.1-5-usb0.1.ltdl7_i386.deb is probably the right one for you. You also need that iscan-data package as well, which you should install first.

Then weave a circle round it thrice and close your eyes with holy dread. Or something like that.

Failing that, I see that my favourite scanning software, Vuescan, supports the WF-2530 on Linux. But you'll need some more of that pension money to get a licence.

Re your favourite scanware, Rhakios.
I went and had a look it. I don't think there is enough money in the whole of Yorkshire to rent that!!
So I went back to trying to make some sense of the Epson site.

I have downloaded

iscan-data_1.23.0-1_all.deb (core package)

iscan_2.29.1-5~usb0.1.ltdl7_i386.deb (image proc. pkg)

My befuddled understanding is that I now install them in the above order.
Would I be correct?